Bergen: Quayle Was Right About Murphy

The Associated Press, iWon News ^ | July 11, 2002

[admiralsn]

Bergen: Quayle Was Right About Murphy
Jul 11, 6:56 AM (ET)
By The Associated Press

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Turns out actress Candice Bergen really did agree with Dan Quayle.

Ten years ago, then-Vice President Quayle criticized Bergen's "Murphy Brown" TV character for "mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice.'"

"I never have really said much about the whole episode, which was endless," Bergen said Tuesday. "But his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did."

In May, Quayle touted the moral value of "The Osbournes," MTV's hit series about the profanity-filled home life of rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his family.

Quayle liked that the offensive words are bleeped and the show features what he called two "loving parents."

"That Dan, you just can't predict him," Bergen said, laughing. "I think that all of us feel that family values have to sort of come back front and center. I don't know if he watched 'The Osbournes' because he certainly never watched 'Murphy Brown,' which didn't stop him from talking about it."

Bergen met with the Television Critics Association to discuss her new Oxygen series, "Candice Checks It Out," in which she visits with non-celebrities in their own environment.

She rejected a proposed idea of interviewing Quayle, whom she's never met, on her show.

"I just thought it was better to take the high road there," Bergen said.

[admiralsn]

Story here.....

For what it's worth.....

[smith288]

I dont have to watch "Sex and the City" to know what its about, simply from hear say.

[zarf]

Maybe Candy has some opinions about Clinton getting blown in OO too? Aww....she probably didn't mind.

[Bigg Red]

What!!!!??? I can handle that Bergen, a Hollywood clymer, is apparently devoid of moral conviction -- well, yeah, single motherhood was a horrible message to send, but I did it anyway -- but did Quayle really say that about the Osbourne show? Say it ain't so....

[1Old Pro]

I could care less what Hollyweird actors think.

[bert]

Always remember.....Avery Brown was a bastard.

[Paul Atreides]

September 11 + Encroaching has-beenhood = a buttload of backtracking.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Story here..... For what it's worth.....

Ya know, I think the story has worth. This story (and the potatoe tale) was hammered and hammered and hammered several years ago by the media, comics, and politicians to paint Dan Quayle as just another conservative idiot - a view so pounded into the American phyche that Mr. Quayle will forever be known as a fool.

Now, Murphy Brown her bad self proclaims that she agreed with him at the time and agrees with him today. I wonder what would have happened if Ms Bergen "outed" her view when the flap occured, and why she opted to wait 10 years?

[CIB-173RDABN]

First, I want to say, yes I know it was only a TV show, and not reality. Having cleared that up, I will comment as if it was real. I think what bothered me most about the eposodes was she was dating two men at the time, and either one could have been the father.

If I remember correctly, both were willing (wanting) to marry her. So her first decision was she did not want to get married.

As small a comfort it is, at least she did not get an abortion.

I hope the fictious Murphy Brown put away some money, as she was already "old" when we met her, and she was in a business that favors youth, at least in woman.

I wonder if she ever lays in bed alone regretting her descion not to marry?

A little off the subject, I often wonder about a business whose sole purpose is to sell things (commercial) can with a straight face say what they present has no effect on the public.

[isthisnickcool]

So, candice says if you don't see something don't comment on it? Pure genius....

I've only watched part of George Michael's new video. Excuse me if I comment on it Candice. It's juvenile and lowbrow.

I never seen George Michaels pump a clymer. So excuse me "Candice" if I say I don't condone that activity. Again, without witnessing it.

I wasn't born when the Germans were killing Jews and others in WWII. According to Candice, I can't say much about that either?

Candice Bergen was born into wealth and fame and she has been able to have some "success" at play acting. So, who cares what she says? Besides her and the morons at the Associated Press. I've never seen the Associated Press either Candice.

I doubt people have ever stood around and said to themselves "what would Candice Bergen do" when working out their problems in life.

Reading AP garbage like this is like chewing gum. It does not last long and everybody spits it our pretty quick.

[Squawk 8888]

I wonder what would have happened if Ms Bergen "outed" her view when the flap occured, and why she opted to wait 10 years?

Her career would have been deep-sixed by the Hollywood liberal establishment, of course. Forgive me if the question was rhetorical.

[aculeus]

First, I want to say, yes I know it was only a TV show, and not reality.

The fact that it was fiction made it worse. This was a case of a bunch of million-a-year script writers (yes, they're paid that much) deciding it would be "fun" to show a single woman getting pregnant.

If it were real some of us could sympathize with the actual person but these were Hollywood smart alecs deciding to stick it to the social conservatives.

[aardvark1]

Interestingly, AFTER the '92 election all the pundits began to climb on this bandwagon, some even admitting that the idea Quayle's and that he was right. The Clinton crowd with their ability to steal every idea that seems to have some popularity, even trumpeted similar themes. So, I've said all that to say this...Candace Bergen is about 8 years too late to catch the wave.

[gubamyster]

"I never have really said much about the whole episode...

Is this true? Does anyone have any quotes from Bergen regarding the episode? I kind of doubt she didn't say much.

[Michael2001]

Bergen: I agreed with him but I went along with the bashing anyway

Gosh Hollywood sends such a great example to our kids.

[truthkeeper]

Is this true? Does anyone have any quotes from Bergen regarding the episode? I kind of doubt she didn't say much.

I seem to have a memory of her making some tongue-in-cheek comments - nothing particularly vicious - regarding the whole bruhaha on an old Emmy Award show when she was a presenter

[John W]

From 1998,but...isn't the net a wonderful thing?

Bergen Keeps Quayle Fight Alive
by Daniel Frankel
Jun 23, 1998, 2:30 PM PT

It's not like it was in 1992, when Candice Bergen was the star of a hit CBS comedy, and Dan Quayle was the vice president of the United States. Still, sniping at each other remains a good way for both to get their names in the press--The New York Times, at that.

Yes, the family-values debate goes on, with Bergen writing a rebuttal letter in Tuesday's Times, claiming Quayle's former speechwriter, Lisa Schiffren, quoted her out of context in a letter published June 12 by the paper.

Seems Schiffren tried to imply that Bergen had reined in her views on single parenting, now agreeing with Quayle's 1992 remarks that her recently departed series, Murphy Brown, wrongly glamorized unmarried motherhood.

"[Schiffren] misused several quotes from an interview I did with the Los Angeles Times to suggest that I was admitting that Mr. Quayle was a lone visionary whose speech had been right all along," Bergen writes.

"She quotes me as saying that family values 'was the right theme to hammer home,' that I 'agreed with all of it except his references to the show,' and that 'the body of the speech was completely sound.' Since that quote serves as the crux of her argument, let me print what she left out: 'it was an arrogant and uninformed posture, but the body of the speech was completely sound.'"

(For the record, Schiffren's 200-plus-word letter described what subject she believes would make the ideal TV sitcom: a working woman who acquiesces to staying at home and taking care of the kids while hubby earns the dough.)

Bergen claims she laid low from criticizing the veep in 1992 because everybody else was doing it--this, even though her show certainly addressed Quayle's comments with some choice shots. "But this latest broadside from the Quayle camp is too much to let pass," she writes.

"In fact, Mr. Quayle hurled an accusation at a show he had never seen in an effort to turn it into a political Monday Night Football. At no point did Murphy Brown glamorize single motherhood or disparage the role of a father in raising a child.

"Ms. Schiffren is now a 'full-time mother of two and an occasional writer.' Not every woman has the luxury to make that choice. Perhaps next time she'll put her talent toward a candidate who would work to eliminate the problem."

Quayle is readying a presidential run in 2000.

[John W]

1998:"In fact, Mr. Quayle hurled an accusation at a show he had never seen in an effort to turn it into a political Monday Night Football. At no point did Murphy Brown glamorize single motherhood or disparage the role of a father in raising a child.
Ms. Schiffren is now a 'full-time mother of two and an occasional writer.' Not every woman has the luxury to make that choice. Perhaps next time she'll put her talent toward a candidate who would work to eliminate the problem."


2000:"But his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did."

[John W]

Correction-2002 for the second quote.